A natural hip joint may undergo degenerative changes due to a variety of etiologies. When these degenerative changes become far advanced and irreversible, it may ultimately become necessary to replace a natural hip joint with a prosthetic hip. When implantation of such a hip joint prosthesis becomes necessary, the head of the femur, the acetabular, or both may need to be replaced. The head of the natural femur is first resected and a cavity is created within the intramedullary canal of the host femur for accepting the hip prosthesis. The hip prosthesis may be inserted and supported within the host femur by cementing the hip prosthesis within the host femur. Alternatively, the hip prosthesis may be impacted into the host femur so that it is a snug fit and supported by the host femur. In a further alternative, the femur may also be resurfaced, in which case the head is not resected. If the acetabulum also needs repair, all remnants of articular cartilage are generally removed from the acetabulum and an acetabular prosthesis which will accommodate the head or ball of the hip prosthesis is affixed to the acetabulum. The acetabular prosthesis is affixed to the acetabulum by means of cement, screws, an uncemented press fit or other appropriate fixation means.
Due to any number of reasons, however, a small portion of patients that undergo such orthopaedic surgical procedures may require subsequent revision surgery to replace the prosthetic device with a new prosthetic device generally referred to as a revision prosthesis.
In this regard, a revision acetabular prosthesis will generally include additional mounting points, such as integral extension members or hooks that provide additional stability for the revision acetabular prosthesis. These additional mounting points are generally required due to additional bone loss or defects exhibited at the acetabulum, such as collar/rim defects or pelvic discontinuity defects.
Various types of revision acetabular prostheses are currently available and different surgeons prefer different types of revision acetabular prostheses. Some surgeons prefer to use what is known as an Ilium flange that is formed integral with the acetabular prosthesis and enables further securement of the acetabular prosthesis in the Ilium region of the pelvis. Other surgeons prefer to use what is known as an obturator hook that is able to provide inferior fixation of the acetabular prosthesis by engaging the obturator foramen which is a large aperture adjacent the acetabulum. Because of this, a hospital must maintain a large inventory of different revision acetabular cups to meet the various surgeons' preferences. Moreover, the surgeon generally requires several revision acetabular cups available during surgery to account for any type of condition that may arise during the surgical procedure. Furthermore, as it may be desirable to have asymmetric securement to the acetabulum, left and right-handed revision acetabular cups may also be required.
This increased inventory of prosthetic devices increases the overall hospital costs and inventory control. Furthermore, by requiring the multiple revision acetabular cups to be available during the surgical procedure, multiple tools for the prosthetic devices may be required and these must be sterilized prior to the surgical procedure, thereby increasing the surgical time, cost and complexity. The present embodiments therefore seek to address these issues.